Five
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Collette was relieved to wake up that morning to find that, so far, she did not seem to have a sore throat. Whether that stayed the same way, remained to be seen.
Wednesday brought good news for Carrie, that her application for graduation had been reviewed and accepted for an official graduating date of December 31, 2006. Next came the process of filing paperwork to begin her masters and her first slew of grad classes. Tough professors, averages of ten papers due per week, extra-strict grading proceedures, probation awarded if overall GPA slipped too much below an “A”… and that was just for the undergrad degree.
Later in the day, Collette heard from Rose that Lucia had called to see if she knew of a place to buy a St. Bernard puppy. The idea seemed to have struck her fancy. Collette could not picture Uncle Mo allowing such a beast inside the house, complete with hot chocolate keg collar or no. It would also likely matter very little to him that St. Bernards were known to rescue people trapped in arctic wildernesses. And, no, Rose had not heard of any place selling St. Bernards. Lucia would simply have to do more research.
Meanwhile, Rose was applying at Culver’s, while playing Nancy Drew mystery games with Linnea, who seemed to be on the mend. And Mom and Carrie-Bri spent the entire day finishing the Christmas shopping.
The office was swarming that morning, though there were thankfully few phone calls. Ivy had also brought in a crockpot of homemade chili and snacks for the day, along with several Coca-Colas. And Collette hoped that the abnormal feel of her throat was more her imagination than the possibility of oncoming things of a worse nature.
Come four o’clock, Ivy had to scoot home to prepare more goodies for the middle school youth party which would be commencing at the Saint house at 6:30, and beforehand, for kids who had to be dropped off early. Collette presumed in advance that the whole episode would be one holy terror. Ivy was very pleased that she had not volunteered her own house for the event. Collette felt sorry, in advance, for the condition of Jimmy’s and Loraine’s own home that evening. And she felt a little sorry for herself, as she and OLeif would be attending after picking up several of the boys on the way over. She was glad, at least, that Ivy had been given the task of organizing the predictably chaotic white elephant/rob-your-neighbor gift exchange. Anything involving the verbal presentation of rules to middle schoolers, was a tricky ordeal.
The whole bash ultimately drew in all four Saints, (and Olive Circles to babysit while she studied for a Spanish 5 final the next morning), Ivy, Jordan and Idlewild Redcoat, OLeif and Collette, Rose (who had come to help supervise and make sure that any certain little-boy-little-girl crushes didn’t get out of hand, should such intervention be necessary)… Frances, Pablo Honey, Gaston Bananas, Marcus Bee and a friend, Creole Coca-Cola, Francine Nickels, Cherry and Amelia Pie (who was only in the fourth grade and especially invited for the evening), and a number of other crazy girls. Noel Chaumiere had avoided the holiday party by attending a ski trip with her family in Colorado, on which (as rumor had it) was currently being dumped loads of snow.